Table Of ContentOXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
Lancelot of the Lake
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(iX^GjRD WORLp’{$ CLASSICS
ANCEtOT OF ti?E LAK
1. F.
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Corin Corley was educated at Bedales School and Edinburgh
University, where hewenton todoa doctoral thesison Old French
Arthurian romance, published as ‘The Second Continuation ofthe
Old French Perceval: acritical and lexicographical study’ (London,
1987). Fie iscurrentlyworkingasafreelancetranslator.
Elspeth Kennedy, Emeritus Fellow of St Hilda’s College,
Oxford, hasedited Lancelotdo Lac: Thenon-cyclic OldFrenchProse
Romance(Oxford, 1980)andwritten LancelotandtheGrail:AStudy
oftheProseLancelot(Oxford, 1986).
,
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OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
Lancelot ofthe Lake
Translatedwith Notesby
CORIN CORLEY
andan Introduction by
ELSPETH KENNEDY
OX.FORD
UNIVERSITY PRESS
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Translation,translator’snote,selectbibliography,explanatorynotes
©CorinCorley1989
Introduction©ElspethKennedy1989
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FirstpublishedasaWorld’sClassicspaperback1989
ReissuedasanOxfordWorld’sClassicspaperback2000
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LancelotduLac.English.
LancelotoftheLaketranslatedwithnotesbyCorinCorley;and
anintroductionbyElspethKennedy.
(Oxfordworld’sclassics)
Translationof:LancelotduLac.
Bibliography:p.21.
1.Lancelot(Legendarycharacter)-Romances.
I.Corley,CorinF.W. II.Title.
PQJ489.2E5 1989 843'.1—dcl9 88-17845
ISBN0-19-283793-1
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
PrintedinGreatBritainby
Cox&WymanLtd.
Reading,Berkshire
CONTENTS
Introduction vii
Translator's Note xix
SelectBibliography xxi
LANCELOT OF THE LAKE
i
ExplanatoryNotes 419
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2015
https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780192837936
INTRODUCTION
The romance translated here tells the story of Lancelot of
the Lake, one of the most famous and best loved of all
Arthurian knights. It was written in French and in prose,
early in the thirteenth century, by an unknown and unnamed
author; it begins with Lancelot’s childhood in the Lake and
ends with the death ofLancelot’s friend Galehot, but it was
not the first nor indeed the last medieval French romance to
have this particular knight as its main hero. As we shall see,
it represents the first stage in the development of the great
Lancelot-Grail prose cycle (or Vulgate cycle as it used to be
called), one ofthe French books known to Malory, but it also
has its roots in twelfth-century Arthurian tradition.
Lancelot first makes his appearance in the surviving texts
in the romances of Chretien de Troyes (second half of the
twelfth century): his name occurs in a list ofgood knights in
ErecetEnide, he is defeated by the main hero in a tournament
in Cliges and finally establishes his reputation as greatest
,
knightly lover in the Chevalier de la Charrette (The Knight of
the Cart). This last romance already contains the main
elements of the tradition lying behind the prose romance,
which makes a number of implicit allusions to the earlier
work and appears to expect its readers to be familiar with it.
Chretien’s romance combines an old tradition ofthe abduc-
tion and rescue ofGuinevere (including a few resonances of
ajourneyinto an otherworld) with an attempt to translate into
narrative terms the concept offin’ amor celebrated in the
,
lyrics ofthe troubadours and trouveres. Guinevere is carried off
by a knight called Meleagant to the land ofGorre, ofwhich
the chieftown is Bath, where many ofArthur’s men are held
captive. Anyone seeking to deliver the prisoners of Gorre
—
must cross one of two strange and perilous bridges an
INTRODUCTION
viii
underwater bridge and a sword bridge. Gawain sets off to
rescue the queen and meets an unnamed knight whom he
does not recognize and whose identity as Lancelot of the
Lake is only revealed by Guinevere herself to the other
characters and to the reader or listener half-way through the
poem. The two knights pursue the abductor, and Lancelot
has a series of adventures which test his quality as humble
and obedient lover. Absorbed in thoughts ofhis beloved, he
falls into trances from which he can be aroused to perform
great deeds; he is prepared to endure humiliation forthe sake
ofhis love and only hesitates a few steps before getting on to
a shameful cart on which the knight must ride who is to
rescue the queen. Gawain, faced with the same choice,
decides to continue his journey on horseback, but when he
tries to cross the underwater bridge, he fails and nearly
drowns. Lancelot’s other adventures prove not only his
fidelity to the queen when he refuses a damsel’s advances,
but also his quality as a knight. He deals calmly with a
perilous bed in which he is threatened by flaming lances and
establishes his identity as the hero destined to deliver the
prisoners of Gorre when he alone can raise a slab in a
perilous cemetery. He crosses the sword bridge, defeats the
queen’s abductor, but, at the very moment when he expects
to be welcomed as her deliverer, is rejected (he learns later
that this is because ofhis momentary hesitation in mounting
the cart). It is only after he disappears into prison and false
rumours ofhis death reach the queen that she forgives him
on his return and grants him one night oflove. Yet even here
the obstacles in the way ofpursuing this love further outside
the strange kingdom of Gorre are hinted at through echoes
of the Tristan story, reminders of the potential threat to
society and the possible tragic fate ofthose involved in a love
which binds together a knight and the wife ofa king. Tragedy
and destruction are kept at arms’ length in Chretien’s poem,
but are banished from our thoughts in this first Lancelot
